Well, this will be my first one-armed post. So probably quite a short one.
Cat (appropriately, three-legged cat) turned round and bit me as I foolishly tried to stop him biting another cat. I suppose, if thinking at all, I was thinking – a three-legged cat, what harm can he do? Four very sharp teeth punctured my left hand full force, and now of course it has gone All Funny. Hand swollen up like a balloon. Cannot open tins with either hand, since I am strongly left-handed and yes, the left hand is the disabled one. Am having to feed them Felix pouches ordered in big boxes from Amazon and opened painfully with scissors. They love Felix but the pouch version costs the earth. At this rate there will be no presents for anybody next Christmas or the Christmas after that.
So, I cannot drive (just bought a replacement car) and cannot write. This morning got yet another email asking me for my meter readings. Thought a bit, then typed the numbers right-handed into my phone. Rest of the time am reduced to watching TV, ice pack clamped to hand, filth and chaos multiplying all around.
When I went to the hospital yesterday (on the bus, with Bertie, who isn’t very well either) they looked at me reprovingly and asked me why I hadn’t come in yesterday morning, when it happened. Well, I didn’t really realise it was going to almost immediately start looking like some kind of vile swamp and blow up like a balloon. I assumed it would just sort of go away… eventually.
Three things:
a) Apparently 90% of the British population is naturally immune to Tetanus nowadays. They immunise children for it as babies, it seems. They don’t like wasting tetanus shots so they do a little blood test on you first, and I am one of the 10% with no immunity. So, a tetanus shot in either arm and four more still to come.
b) They have put me on these very strong antibiotics which nurse describes, encouragingly, as “the Domestos of all antibiotics”. She tells me it would be best not to read the contra-indications in the leaflet inside the box. Antibiotics usually make me feel queasy, but oddly these haven’t. Neither have they reduced the size of the swollen hand, yet. The pain-killers are making me feel queasy.
c) I am instructed if the redness reaches my elbow or begins to track upwards “like veins” I am to make my way immediately to Accident and Emergency fifteen or twenty miles away. Over Christmas. With no buses, no trains, and unable to drive. Thankfully, so far no tracking.
Ah, tis indeed the season to be Merry!
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